Couch: Michigan State needs a new offense – Dantonio is betting his legacy otherwise

Lansing State Journal

There weren't many plays that worked for Mark Dantonio and the Spartans late in Saturday's loss to Northwestern.

EAST LANSING – If Mark Dantonio doesn’t win big again at Michigan State, this week will be remembered as when some of his fan base lost faith.

“The formula for success here has been: If you can run it 40 times … you've got a pretty good chance to win,” Dantonio said at his weekly press conference. “That's been our success.”

Dantonio struck a stubborn tone at a moment MSU fans were hoping for more sophistication and even a little contrition, showing an understanding that the Spartans’ offensive issues are part philosophical and perhaps coaching aptitude, not just unfortunate circumstance.

“You have to be able to run the football to some degree,” he continued in the wake of MSU’s 29-19 loss to Northwestern, “especially when the yardage gets short or when you’re in situations that demand that you’ve got to be able to run the ball. So we’ve got to figure out a way to do that and that’s our challenge.”

And later …

“I’m going to try not to micromanage. I’m going to try to empower our coaches to do their job and allow them to do their job with confidence. So I’m not going to be in a threatening mode, I’m just not. I’m going to be who I am. I am going to allow them to do their work and believe in them and push it forward. That’s what I've done. Served us well.”

Nobody doesn’t overreact better than Dantonio. The same things were being said about his offense and his staff’s offensive acumen in 2012 and early in ’13. He stayed the course when folks like me were wondering if he should hand over the keys to an outsider. He made subtle modernizing adjustments, players developed just in time and boom — 36-5 happened over the next three seasons. And not in spite of MSU’s offense. In part, it was because of a pro-style offense ripped mostly from the 1990s.

It has served him well.

But this offense also requires that your guys are better than the guys across from them, especially at the line of scrimmage. You have to have a strong offensive line and two gifted receivers just to keep a defense honest — and a capable quarterback, of course. Last week, given the injuries and personnel, MSU had one big-time receiver healthy and available and an offensive line that was anything but sound.

If Dantonio thinks he’ll usually have the pieces necessary in the years to come, then he can reasonably stick by his pound-the-rock, pro-style philosophy and with offensive coaches who only know that system. But if MSU can’t run the ball for a fourth straight season next year, he’ll be firmly living in the past — further away from his unprecedented success than the length of time it lasted.

Then, if he still thinks running the ball in the same power sets “is our challenge,” it’ll be time for the university to begin to think about a new challenge — what it wants from its next head coach.

If Dantonio decides he’s up for change, he’ll likely have to make changes to his staff. Or add to it from outside. His co-offensive coordinators, Dave Warner and Jim Bollman, are deeply rooted in this offense — Warner a disciple of Glen Mason, Bollman of Jim Tressel. There doesn’t appear to be a ton of exposure to other offensive concepts and ideology between them. And when Dantonio had the opportunity to add a new voice to his coaching staff this offseason, he chose his former offensive coordinator, Don Treadwell. That’s the booth on game days right now — Warner, Bollman, Treadwell.

Dantonio’s choice of offense Is designed to help his defense — to control the clock, to wear teams down. He’s a defensive guy. He knows defense. He can fix a defense. He knows what he’d like from offense. There’s a difference.

His pro-style offense requires a quarterback who can read a defense pre- and post-snap. I’ve always appreciated that. And respected the machismo of it. But it requires too much — in recruiting, development and luck, at least at a place like Michigan State. And it too often makes life unnecessarily hard.

Wisconsin has done it. But MSU hasn’t consistently recruited linemen at Wisconsin’s level — or weight. MSU at times this season will have have four offensive linemen weighing 290 pounds or less on the field together. The Badgers this season don’t start a single lineman under 306. They’ve had nine offensive linemen selected in the last eight NFL drafts. The Spartans have had three in Dantonio’s tenure: Brian Allen (2018), Jack Conklin and Donovan Clark (both 2016).

If MSU doesn’t have Wisconsin’s linemen or Ohio State’s playmakers, it can’t expect to beat either regularly by lining up in a tug-of-war.

MSU coach Mark Dantonio sits alone in the stands at Spartan Stadium earlier this season.

Alabama, the best program in college football, runs a pro-style offense and Nick Saban has reaffirmed that this year. He’s also shown a willingness to innovate. Alabama, though, is irrelevant to MSU. MSU doesn’t have Alabama’s parts. That much has been made clear. Stanford and Michigan run pro-style attacks, as well. Seven Cardinal offensive linemen have been picked in the NFL draft in the past eight years. The Wolverines, meanwhile, have found tough sledding offensively, unable to develop an adequate line, despite a marquee brand.

Joe Tiller, John L. Smith, Urban Meyer and other offensive intellects formulated their spread offenses for just this reason — to make up for the differences in talent, wherever they were. Smith, before he coached MSU, helped Meyer invent his offense, before Meyer was at Bowling Green. Smith didn’t endear himself to MSU fans when he said that at MSU you couldn’t compete up front with Ohio State and Michigan, so you needed a gimmick offense. He wasn’t entirely correct. MSU was a physical force in the trenches in the best of the George Perles and Saban eras and then won three Big Ten titles under Dantonio. But Smith was right that it’s hard to sustain. Smith’s offense, like so many now, used tempo and empty backfields and single-back sets to spread out defenses.

MSU, under Dantonio, too often is trying to block eight defenders concentrated in a tight area with seven offensive players. If you spread your offense out, you stretch out the defense. There are fewer defenders to block and there is more space to operate. It’s simple logic, but making it all work — in any offense — takes expertise.

What’s most important right now is that MSU takes advantage of what it has. It has at least one healthy NFL-caliber wideout in Felton Davis. It has an experienced quarterback with a live arm and quick feet. It has enough to create mismatches by moving its playmakers around. It doesn’t do it enough. Davis should be catching 10 to 12 passes a game right now and being targeted 15 to 18 times. He caught seven passes and was targeted 13 times against Northwestern. Those were season highs.

What MSU doesn’t have is a running game. And as long as its personnel and formations remain as is, it won’t have a running game this year. That’s a problem. But not a “challenge” worth undertaking unless MSU tries something new. There’s no remedy in attempting to run through the same brick wall time after time until you’re 6-6.

MSU’s problems are not just play-calling or philosophical. Execution is largely to blame. Go back and watch MSU’s 13 drives against Northwestern. Drives Nos. 11 and 12 were abysmal — gaffes primarily in play-calling and blocking, both up front and in the backfield. But the drives that stalled among MSU’s first 10 possessions were mostly the result of dropped passes, bad footing, a bad interception and a badly beaten offensive lineman here and there. In some other years, MSU makes those plays. Same plays. Same philosophy.

Not this year. Maybe next.

Dantonio is steadfast that what worked before will work again. And he’s earned the right to make that choice.

He’s betting his legacy and tenure on it.

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Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.